Classes for the Month of Jan

Transcription

1 Volume 19 Number 1 Jan 2019 SCACC Classes for the Month of Jan SCA Computer Club To enroll, sign into the website at Go to the calendar and click on the class you want to take. Be sure to check the date as there may be multiple offerings of the class. Click on the green Enroll Me box for the class you want to enroll. If you need to cancel your enrollment, please log back in, select the class again and click on Drop Me. This will make it available to others who may want to take the class and are on the waiting list. If you are on the waiting list, show up for the class to see if someone enrolled did not show up and you may be bumped into the class. All classes are geared for beginners unless otherwise indicated. IMPORTANT: You must have your SCA Resident ID with you to check-in at the Monitor desk AND AGAIN in the front of the Classroom to ensure you are enrolled on the day of the class. Check-in will begin 20 minutes before the scheduled class time. If you are late, you may be bumped from the class by someone on the waiting list. Buying a Computer: Are you considering buying a new computer for yourself or as a gift? Should you buy a desktop, a laptop or a tablet? What are the differences between them? Should you buy a Mac or a PC? Will it be used for , to watch movies, organize your photos, write a book, etc.? Have your questions answered before you buy. Living with Windows 10: How you used Windows XP, or Vista or Windows 7 continues to change in Windows 10 every 6 months. And the Tools are moving. Attend Living with Windows 10 to brush up on What, Where and How to Use Windows 10 to manage Webmail, save content, search for answers. Do not be shy, bring questions or solutions you have discovered. Apple Mobile Safari Browser: Using the Safari browser ipad, iphone, and ipod Touch including using multiple tabs, creating, organizing and using bookmarks, downloading, and setting preferences. Prerequisites: Introduction to ipad or familiarity with IOS operating system. Apple Mobile Contacts App: Account configuration, using groups to organize contacts, integration with the Mail app, the phone, the Message app and Facetime. Prerequisites: Introduction to ipad or familiarity with IOS operating system. Apple Mobile Mail App: How to use the Mail app to send and receive mail from multiple accounts on iphones, ipads and ipod touch. Topics will include basic account setup, creating and using mailboxes, attachments, and signatures. We will also cover sending attachments including pictures by . Avoiding Spam and phishing schemes will be explained. Prerequisites: Introduction to ipad or familiarity with IOS operating system. Photoshop Elements: Do you have a digital camera? Learn how to organize and edit your pictures. This hands-on class for both Mac and Windows users gives a basic introduction to Adobe Photoshop Elements. After taking this introductory class to this powerful photo-editing program, we recommend continuing with the Photoshop Elements SIG, where different tools, projects, and techniques are discussed. If you ve recently joined our Club we encourage you to attend the New Member Orientation class to familiarize yourself with our Club s activities. Learn how to sign up for classes, schedule a house call, volunteer to be a monitor and more. Current members who are not familiar with all of the benefits offered by our Computer Club are also encouraged to take this Orientation as a refresher.

2 Classes for January (continued) Apple Mobile Calendar App: Account configuration, making and using multiple calendars, creating events including repeating events and the use of alerts. Sharing Calendars and subscribing to public calendars will be covered. Prerequisites: Introduction to ipad or familiarity IOS operating system. Tune up and maintain your PC: For users of the Windows Operating system it is essential to properly tune up and maintain your system. In this class we will provide you with a recommended stepby-step procedure, which will improve the performance of your computer. Special Interest and User Groups A SIG is a special interest group that meets on a weekly or monthly basis. User Groups also meet on a monthly basis. We invite ANY Computer Club member who is interested in learning more about a specific product/application or a specific topic to join in the discussions. All groups meet in the computer classroom. Participants ask questions and discuss various topics at each session. If you are an Apple user, join our Apple USER SIG. We meet monthly to investigate Apple products. Did you recently buy a Mac, an ipad or MacBook Air? Do you have questions regarding specific Apple products or applications? Sit in on this month s meeting on Saturday, Jan 12 from 10 AM- noon in the Computer Classroom and see if this is the group you have been looking to join. The Photography User Group, our Club s newest user group, will meet on Monday, Jan 14 from 1-3 PM in the Computer Classroom. If you have an interest in photography, join this group and learn more about techniques to enhance your picture taking, photo composition or learn about photo equipment, etc. Since our group is new, we welcome fresh ideas regarding its structure and intent as we develop. Come join us as we grow. The Photoshop Elements SIG will meet on Fri, Jan 25 from 9:30-11:30 AM. Enhance your skills working with digital photos. Every month we cover topics that build upon skills learned in the basic Photoshop Elements class and participants can get help with Photoshop Elements related problems. Prerequisites: basic Photoshop Elements class or some experience using Photoshop Elements. Computer Talk meets weekly from 9 10 AM every Thursday and is designed as a question and answer session. Can t figure out how to do something? Anyone can ask anything computer related. Do you have a question regarding a specific product or application? Bring your questions and join the discussion each Thursday. New members are always welcome. Your Computer Club s Board will meet on Thursday, Jan 31 in the Computer Classroom from 1:30-3:00 PM. The Board consists of your Club s Officers and Directors as voted on by you, the membership. Each Board meeting will discuss our Club s operations, policies and general business. Learn how your Club functions. A member comment period will be allowed at the end of each meeting members to offer feedback, recommendations and/or comments. New members are encouraged to attend. SCACC SCA Computer Club As of Jan 1, 2019 all checks made out for Membership, Renewals and House Calls must read: Sun City Anthem Community Association, Inc. The monitor at the Computer Club desk and House Call technicians will have a stamp for your checks so you won t have to write out the entire name.

3 Lithium Battery Discipline By Brian Corr In a recent house call I visited a member who uses his MacBook Pro laptop as a desktop computer by using an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. He had all the cables, power, USB printer cable and display cable, all neatly bundled and operated the laptop with the lid closed so his desk was hardly distinguishable from the normal desktop computer. His MacBook pro was a 13 inch from 2013 and in discussion with him it was apparent that this had been his configuration for some time. He left the computer running constantly and simply turned the monitor off when he wasn t going to use it for a while. I sat down in front of the machine to check for malware and noticed that the lid was slightly open, so, being the orderly person I am I reached over to press it closed and felt resistance which I thought might be the result of something being in the way. I opened lid and found the track pad cracked and bulging up. For quite a while now Apple has not waisted space on replaceable batteries and has designed their batteries to provide maximum capacity in the tight space in the case. Suspecting that this might be the result of a bulging battery I turned the computer over an found that the bulging was even worse than I initially suspected. As you can see from the second picture, the bottom of the case was bent and being expanded so that the battery was visible. Feeling the case I found that it was hot to the touch. I immediately shut down the computer and unplugged the power cord. I informed the member that he was lucky not to have had a fire or explosion already and that he needed to have it repaired before he plugged it in or turned it on again. Based on the age of his computer it was beyond Warranty and on the edge of being considered vintage with no parts availability so he decided to go to a local Mac third party service center that accepted trade-ins for purchase of newer used computers. There is a moral to this story. As well designed as lithium batteries and their charging systems might be, a little discipline in how we use these devices (and that includes virtually all rechargeable devices) can protect us from catastrophic failure and the potential for fire and explosion and may even extend their useful life. I know many of our devices need to be fully charged and ready to go but if you are not going to use it for a while disconnect it from its power source, there s no such thing as giving it a little more than 100% charge. Occasionally let it discharge to close to zero so it can then go through a full charge cycle giving the built-in system a chance to calibrate the charge rate and level. Batteries get warm when they charge and discharge but check to make sure it doesn t get excessively hot. If a battery starts bulging immediately disconnect it from power and turn off the device until you can get it repaired.

4 Could this be your New Year s Resolution? Are you ready to make a new start this year? Are you ready to get away from some of the Internet sites that take up a lot of your time? Do you spend too much time on Facebook, Instagram, dating apps, etc. Are you concerned about your privacy? If so, then maybe this year is the year you cut back or severe your ties with these social networking apps. Facebook (FB), a social networking site that many folks use to share information with friends and family, had security and privacy breeches in These breeches exposed users account information, leaving many folks to wonder whether or not they wanted to continue using Facebook. If you are one of those folks and want to leave Facebook, consider doing this. Ask yourself if you want to deactivate your FB account or delete it altogether. Depending on how you use your FB account, it could affect some of your other accounts. For example, if you used your FB account to sign into other social networking accounts or products and services (e.g. Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) deleting your FB account could prevent you from using those other products and services (because they could be deeply integrated with FB). You might consider deactivating your account, then seeing what effect that has on your other accounts. If you still want to use the other accounts, then rather than signing in from FB, create an account using your address instead. Before deactivating or deleting your FB account, you might want to download your data. FB allows one to do that. From your account, select Menu> scroll down and select Settings> scroll down and under Your Facebook Information select Download Your Information and choose your options. Create file after making your choices. Deactivating your account means that no one can see your profile, although some information, e.g. messages may still be visible. Your friends may still be able to see your name in their friends list. You WILL still have Messenger and can chat with your friends and other people can search for you and send you a message. If you would like to re-activate your account you can do so at a late time. Deleting your account is permanent. After 30 days, your account and all your information will be permanently deleted, and you won't be able to retrieve your information. However, it may take up to 90 days from the beginning of the deletion process to delete all the things you've posted. During this process, your information is not accessible to other people using Facebook. Ready to start the New Year off without Facebook? To deactivate (suspend) your FB account or to Delete your Account: From your account, select Menu (the three lines at the bottom right)> scroll down and under Settings & Privacy select Settings> scroll down and under Your Facebook Information select Account Ownership and Control> Deactivation and Deletion. Make your selection to either Deactivate Account or Delete Account. You might consider deleting your other social media/social networking accounts (e.g. Instagram, dating apps, etc. ) as well, especially if you are concerned about your privacy.

5 Windows and listening in ON THE AIR Windows security updates You have probably heard of Patch Tuesday (or sometimes called Update Tuesday ), the second Tuesday of each month that Microsoft releases its security (and other patches) for its operating systems (and other software). Generally, Microsoft seems to have more patch updates in even months, than in odd months. You might have even heard Patch Tuesday referred to as Crash Wednesday due to the issues it has had accompanying such patches. Non-security updates to Microsoft Office normally happen on the first Tuesday of each month and firmware updates for Microsoft s Surface devices occur on the third Tuesday of each month. The last Patch Tuesday was on Dec 13, 2018 and it had 67 individual security updates to correct 39 unique issues across Microsoft Windows operating systems and other software. Jan 8, 2019 is projected to be the next Patch Tuesday. So what do these updates do? Well, the patches from Microsoft update several individual files that make Windows and its software work. These are files that Microsoft has identified as having security issues, system vulnerabilities or bugs that could provide a means to do something malicious to your computer without your knowledge. Some updates correct serious issues e.g. that could allow remote access to your computer without your permission. These are critical issues, but most are less serious and identified as important, moderate or low. That is why it is important to update your computer when the updates become available. However, having said that, lately with the issues with Windows 10 updates, it may be better to wait and not try to update immediately following a release. There is no official way to turn off automatic updating in Windows 10, nor is there a straightforward way to disable Windows Update altogether. You can defer updates and even determine when you want to install them on your computer via Settings> Update & Security> Advanced options. You can also see the latest updates your computer has via Settings> Update & Security> View update history. Only updates applicable to your computer will be listed. Software that has been released does not mean that it is free of bugs, security vulnerabilities or other issues. With online security becoming a greater concern, implementing and managing patches is vital to the security infrastructure of companies and system patches are constantly needed to keep operating systems up to date and secure. Hence Patch Tuesday is a set time every month that updates can be implemented for existing software. The current version of Windows 10 is version It was originally released in October, but halted due to issues that have since been resolved. Microsoft again re-released version 1809 in November. To check to see what version your computer is running, go to Settings> System> scroll down and select About.

6 Useful things you may want to know, or Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that we made up ourselves Q. My grandson is such a little bugaboo. I let him use one of my older laptops while he was visiting. I just looked at it and the screen is now upside down. I am pretty sure he did something to this as a joke, but before I call my daughter and have her ask him, is there something I can try to fix it? A. Kids, got to love them, eh? The most common keyboard shortcut combinations to rotate your screen are: CTRL + ALT + Up Arrow CTRL + ALT + Down Arrow CTRL + Alt + Left Arrow CTRL + Alt + Right Arrow If that doesn t correct it and you are running Windows 10, right-click on an empty space on your desktop. Select Display Settings. Select Landscape under Orientation. Your screen should change immediately and if it does and looks correct, select Keep Changes. If not, select Revert to go back. Q. My ipad is acting a little weird and my son told me to just re-boot it. I told him OK, but I don t know how to and didn t want to admit that to him because I am sure he told me how to do it before. Is it easy to do, and if so, how? A. Here s how to reboot your ipad. Hold down the sleep/wake button (on the top right of your ipad along the same edge as your camera as you are holding it in the portrait mode) for a couple of seconds. The ipad will prompt you to slide a button to Power Off the device. Slide the button from left to right to Power Off your ipad. If your ipad is frozen, you may not see the Power Off message. In this case, hold down the sleep/ wake button for about 20 seconds to force it to Power Off. Your ipad screen should display a circle of dashes indicating it is busy and once it has shut down completely, the screen should go black. Wait for about a minute, then hold down the sleep/wake button once again to restart your ipad. When the Apple log appears, you can release the sleep/wake button. Your ipad will start shortly after the logo appears. By the way, rebooting one s ipad is something you can to do once in a while especially if your ipad runs slow (or freezes for a few seconds). If a particular app keeps crashing your ipad, try deleting the app and rebooting your ipad. Then download it again from the App Store. If your ipad s onscreen keyboard stops popping up or if it is slow, try rebooting your ipad. You can also try rebooting your ipad if you are having trouble connecting to your Wi-Fi or if your battery appears to be draining too fast. Let us know if this helps. SCACC SCA Computer Club As of Jan 1, 2019 all checks made out for Membership, Renewals and House Calls must read: Sun City Anthem Community Association, Inc. The monitor at the Computer Club desk and House Call technicians will have a stamp for your checks so you won t have to write out the entire name.